"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd." (Alexander Pope, "Eloisa to Abelard")

"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception." (Groucho Marx)

"In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine." (Milan Kundera)

"It's a pleasure to share one's memories. Everything remembered is dear, endearing, touching, precious. At least the past is safe - though we didn't know it at the time. We know it now. Because it's in the past; because we have survived." (Susan Sontag)

"Man ... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him." (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche)

"What remains of your past if you didn't allow yourself to feel it when it happened? If you don't have your experiences in the moment, if you gloss them over with jokes or zoom past them, you end up with curiously dispassionate memories." (David Rakoff, Fraud)

"Where had they all gone to, he often pondered; those threads he had once held together, how far had they scattered, some to break, others to weave into unknown patterns? The strange randomness of the world beguiled him, that randomness which never would, so long as the world lasted, give meaning to those choruses again." (James Hilton, Goodbye, Mr. Chips)